CONTEMPORARY artist Gig de Pio, Sr. departs from his usual portraits and revisits abstracts in Rustan’s For the Arts’ first exhibition this year.
Born in Cebu in 1951, Mr. De Pio is best known for his portraits. He holds a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts in Diliman where he was a Jose Joya scholar and later served as a professor. In 2011, Mr. De Pio received the Araw ng Manila award from former Manila City mayor Alfredo Lim.
“[This collection] is a break (from portraiture),” Mr. De Pio told BusinessWorld at the exhibition launch on Jan. 30.
“In high school, I saw an exhibit by [National Artist for Visual Arts] Jose Joya in our province in Cebu. Abstraction blew my mind. Ever since, I really wanted to do that,” he added.
In this collection, 20 paintings reflect the artist’s view of the world through the Theory of Entropy.
“One accident is just an accident. Another accident overlaps it, and there is an event. The third one is that there is a personality that is created,” Mr. De Pio explained. “You can see that in my work.”
The canvases come in various shapes that use warm earth colors.
“Not like some abstractions where elements just crisscross, it is the inside where they meet which is my subject,” he said.
The Rustan’s For The Arts series has previously featured collections by Filipino artists such as National Artists Benedicto “BenCab” Cabrera, Fernando Amorsolo, Arturo Luz, and Anita Magsaysay-Ho.
The collection is on view at Rustan’s Makati until March 31 and will move to Rustan’s Shangri-La in April. — Michelle Anne P. Soliman
